Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Owen Glenn pledged $80 million to sort out child abuse and domestic violence, including a $2 million inquiry to answer the question:

"If New Zealand was leading the world in addressing child abuse and domestic violence what would that look like?"

The appointment of Ruth Herbert to head the Inquiry was the best decision Owen Glenn could have made, and her swift recruitment of the most well-connected (to community) and well-informed (about the dynamics of domestic violence) to advise this Inquiry was inspired. Her staff choices were not half bad either, including several women with many, many years of experience responding to domestic violence and working with survivors.

Disclaimer: I know Ruth Herbert professionally, and have done for many years. She is, in my opinion, the single most brilliant feminist structural thinker working in the gendered violence sector in New Zealand. Which doesn't mean I always agree with her - but it does mean if I was going to pick one feminist to change structures which fail to ensure victims of domestic violence are safe, and fail to hold people using abuse to account, it would be her.

All swims along nicely. There's a website, community meetings starting to take place, and of course that Think Tank.

Then in May, Ruth Herbert and her Operations Manager Jessica Trask both resign. In just over a month, 28 of the 38 original Think Tank members have left, and the old allegation of assault which Mr Glenn pled no contest for becomes public knowledge. Other staff members also resign.

Ms Herbert and Ms Trask make it clear there are confidentiality issues in the leaving of the Glenn Inquiry, and who knows how much legal action someone with Mr Glenn's fortune can buy? So the exact issues at play in all these resignations are sketchy.

"I think the safety, the literal life and death safety of these people is in jeopardy at the moment under an inquiry being run by people who haven't experienced [domesticviolence] and have no understanding of how real it is." She hoped experts were"warning off"victims who had been asked to co-operate.

It's hard to see how this is salvageable, but then to complicate matters further, a quite astonishing review is made public, which makes allegations about the practices of the Inquiry under Ms Herbert and Ms Trask. Allegations, it turns out, they were unaware of:

"We were unaware the report was being released and were given no
opportunity to respond to the direct criticisms about us contained
in the report before it was published. We continue to be unable to speak publicly due to the
confidentiality clause in the contracts we had with the Glenn
Family Foundation. We are now seeking legal advice."

This is astonishing precisely because, if the problem was Ms Herbert, why have 28 out of 38 Think Tank members resigned because she left?

It's hard not to see this "independent" review as a contracted cover-up, with just a little bit of utu thrown in. The report says the authors were "engaged" but it's unclear if that means the Inquiry paid them, or if they were paid, how much. The authors make their priorities clear when they state:

the most critical challenge for the Board was to secure stability within the organisation, ensure that the leadership and management could function effectively and was sufficiently resilient to withstand any attempt to dislodge the purpose of the inquiry.

They go on to make a bunch of recommendations about data storage, governance and dis-establishing the Think Tank. They also think the Glenn Inquiry should hire a PR specialist in there pronto.

Today a critique of this review surfaced, from a former Think Tank member Rachel Simon-Kumar. If you read one link to this post, go to this one:

Nowhere in the executive summary is there an actual definition of the
term "safety" that the authors are trying to evaluate....

The concern with this lack of rigour
is that the report focuses on aspects of personal relationships that are
irrelevant to safety (ideal, though, for character assassination) but
alongside, misses out on key issues central to understanding it.

Central
to women-centred research is the understanding that safety is not
merely about data collection, storage or retrieval; it is equally about
who interprets the data and draws conclusions from them. The values and
the framing of the findings is central to ensuring safety of voices of
survivors.

In the end, it seems the inquiry would have been served best if a fully
objective review had been undertaken by experts who have the skill sets
to assess women-centred research. Until such time, it is safe to say
that the perils that others have pointed to still persist.

I'm going to leave you with the words of Louise Nicholas, who can always be relied on to put the safety of survivors first. She withdrew her support immediately after Ruth Herbert and Jessica Trask resigned.

When I heard that Ruth Herbert and Jessica Trask had resigned from the inquiry I didn't believe there was any safety left for survivors I was going to support through this inquiry. My own personal opinion is it isn't safe for survivors.

It is unclear on the true reasons why many have left the enquiry,but what remains is still the fact that D/V is still a huge problem in this country,and,ok Mr Glen may have stuffed up badly ,but this does not mean he is not serious about this issue and is prepared to fund a movement into trying to address the issue -which is more than this government are going to do.I believe people will regret the opportunity that they had to make a difference and what they have done is turned their back on a person who could have been trying to correct the wrongs that he may have done?The stand that people are trying to make by leaving,is Im afraid not helpful or heroic -but maybe Im missing the facts?

I very much doubt Owen Glenn needs protection (or good PR for that matter) from anyone, BUT the victims NEED protection & confidentiality - guaranteed. Without this they have no reason to participate.

"Good intentions" can, and will be deadly if this isn't handled properly - seriously, can Glenn have such a severe case of megalomania that he misses the message behind TWENTY EIGHT resignations?! That leaves 17%...not even close to a pass rate.

K - yeah, I agree. Shocking that a review about SAFETY is recommending better PR. Absolutely shocking. Two anonymous's (anonymi??) - please use a consistent handle for future comments - but essentially the point is this, throwing money at a problem is completely meaningless, let alone unsafe with an issue like domestic violence, if it's not well-informed. Mr Glenn can no longer claim that.

cynicalbut thoughtfulHave any of those publishing these comments actually read the review report??? I understand Ruth & Jessica were both interviewed as a part of the review process....to now claim they had no opportunity to comnment is a bit disingenuous. Note also that while a number of panel members have left, many have stayed, especially those who took the time to look into the actual issues rather than simply making a new jerk reaction out of personal loyalty to Ruth and Jessica. Cynicalbut thoughtful

cynicalbutthoughtful - yes, 10 out of 38 people on the Think Tank stayed as noted above.What makes you think the resignations of the other 28 were "knee jerk"? I'd describe them as "considered" when you look at the steady drip of resignations over time and the quality of those resigning, many of whom have given decades of their lives to ending domestic violence and I'm sure were desperate for this opportunity to work.It sounds like, if Ruth Herbert and Jessica Trask were interviewed for the review, then they are pretty unhappy with the way their interviews have been interpreted. No doubt there is more to come on this - whether it is made public or not is another matter of course.